Rick Trojanowski placed the winning bid on an old toolbox back in 2017. He was at a farm auction at the time and didn’t take time to look through his new acquisition for a couple of years. Tucked away in a drawer of the toolbox was a love letter written 70 years earlier.
The letter had been written to a woman living in Grand Rapids, Michigan from a man who was in the Army. He wrote about how he regretted their argument five months earlier, and how slowly time had moved during their period of silence. After apologizing profusely for his role in the disagreement, he spoke of how he looked forward to coming home, and asked her to marry him upon his return, still seven months in the future at the time he wrote the letter.
Trojanowski doesn’t have any use for the old love letter, but he figures surviving family members might. He has been scouring Facebook for clues about survivors of either the woman or the man but has so far had no success. A Grand Rapids TV station has now joined in the hunt, asking anyone with information on either individual to get in touch with them.
Old love letters can be a treasure; I can speak from experience. Our parents, newlyweds at the time, wrote many letters while my father was stationed in Germany in World War 2. None of their children had yet been born, but it’s reassuring to us to see how they loved each other.
There is another letter that has been written to express deep and abiding love, and for many people it has become lost. Yes, I’m referring to the Bible, God’s message to humanity. It is a book of profound and too-good-to-be-true love. For many, however, His love remains a secret.
John 15:13,14 is a great example of the love in this “letter”: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” The four biographies of Jesus (the Gospels) detail how Jesus laid down His life, and His willingness to do so despite the personal cost to Himself.
Romans 5:8 is another powerful statement of God’s love: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Where else have you ever heard of a more striking example of someone’s love for another?
But the Bible isn’t just a statement of God’s love for us; it’s a plea to restore our relationship with Him. “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Though that toolbox was in Trojanowski’s possession for a couple of years, that love letter remained lost until he began searching through it. God’s love is clearly communicated through Scripture, but if we’re not searching those Scriptures (see Acts 17:11), that love will remain lost to us. Such life-changing love needs to be discovered! Open your Bible now and search diligently.
Come to the light God offers! Study His word, the Bible. Worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Get in touch with us if you’d like to discuss these ideas further.
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Copyright, 2024, Timothy D. Hall
